I want a government where the Republicans we vote for care more about us than Trump | Opinion
The GOP's fear of a Republican president has created a cycle of broken government.
The second Trump administration is plagued by debate over the power of America's courts and the rulings being made. President Donald Trump and his allies are frustrated that courts continue blocking his executive actions, and the courts are frustrated that Republicans are losing confidence in the judicial system.
To some extent, someone like Trump is exactly what lazy Republicans in Congress want in a president: an authoritarian who wants to be a lawmaker in their stead. I have joined several others repeatedly criticizing Congress’ unwillingness to do its job and provide checks and balances to the White House.
What is often overlooked, however, is how the GOP’s complete surrender to Trumpism has worsened the problem we all have to deal with. Republican fear of a Republican president has created a cycle of broken government.
Congress refuses to do its job, Trump overreaches and the courts are forced to intervene. This is America's current cycle, and it is needlessly stress-testing the foundations of our three branches of government.
Congress refuses to act, so Trump steps in and creates chaos
The majority of Trump’s headbutting with the courts wouldn't exist if Congress stepped up to the plate and actually did its job.
Instead, our elected representatives are perfectly fine sitting idly as Trump undermines faith in the judiciary.
This isn’t a sudden change for Congress, either. Congressional inaction has been a problem for years.
The only reason that courts are now being placed under so much scrutiny during this administration is that Trump is more willing to flaunt the law than Joe Biden was, or even more than Trump did during his first term.
Now, Trump has no qualms stretching the law to justify his actions. This is forcing courts to step in. When they rule against Trump, he is becoming increasingly comfortable undermining the credibility of the courts and pushing the needle toward ignoring them altogether.
Take the Alien Enemies Act, for example. Trump has stretched a piece of legislation intended for wartime to allow him to deport suspected gang members with minimal due process.
Congress could pass legislation to clarify whether the act can be used for this purpose, but instead, it is left for the courts to try to decipher what lawmakers meant when they wrote it originally. The Supreme Court recently ruled against him on deportations, and his response was to attack the court he essentially built.
Congress could alleviate plenty of the strain on the judicial system by actually legislating and clarifying what past actions, such as the Alien Enemies Act, mean. But lawmakers seem to have no interest in doing that. Both due to their fear of crossing Trump and their innate laziness, they're perfectly fine sitting back and letting Trump blur the lines among the three branches.
Republicans have neutered checks and balances by kneeling to Trump
During his first term, Trump had more respect for the institutions that compose our government. Congress was still lazy, but he still had respect for the courts. His presidency was instrumental in building the judicial landscape of America today.
The guardrails that kept Trump in place during his first term, namely the old guard of the Republican Party, are no longer the dominant power within the GOP.
Once it became clear that Trump was going to win the nomination a second time, the Republican Party put all of its chips on him, without regard for the consequences. Winning in 2024 was more important to the Republican Party than preserving its values.
At the same time, the Republican Party that was rooted in conservatism either shed its spine or is hitting retirement. The result is a wave of Republican legislators who are either so scared of a Trump-endorsed primary challenger that they have fallen in line, or have built careers out of their fealty to Trump altogether.
Composing your party in such a way that one man has so much power over it has myriad issues – the biggest of which is that once that man is in office, there is no moderating him. Everyone in the GOP is so scared of Trump that there is nobody willing to tell him when he is wrong now.
We’ve seen some deviation from this status quo regarding the disastrous Trump tariffs, which at least seven Republican senators were willing to vote to combat. Nonetheless, Republicans en masse have been willing to sit back and let Trump act as he pleases.
Eventually, Republicans will fear their constituents more than they do a Trump primary challenger. I’m not sure when those scales tip, but if I were in Congress, I’d be pretty worried about my voters' thoughts on Trump right about now.
As we approach the 100-day mark for Trump's second term, Republicans should get realistic about their future electoral odds. Continuing to tie themselves to the flailing Trump administration will only hurt their chances in upcoming elections.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for Paste BN and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.